Hannah Davidson

Additional Information

Hannah Davidson is recorded in the supplied notes as a child of Lewis Davidson and Elizabeth Claypoole Conwell. Earlier notes say she was born July 12, 1757 in Morgantown, West Virginia and died July 28, 1840 in Eugene, Indiana.

Find a Grave memorial 271303247 records her as Hannah McMechen and gives alternate details: born about 1757 in Sussex County, Delaware, migrated to Fayette County, Pennsylvania with her parents in 1767, and buried on her daughter's family farm in Vermillion County, Indiana. The gravesite details say she lived with her daughter Orpah McMechen Davidson from the time she left Virginia until she died in 1841, and was buried alongside her son-in-law James Davidson, who died in 1840.

Hannah married Pvt. James McMechen. One Find a Grave note records the marriage in 1778, while James's memorial records it in 1779. The Find a Grave text says they were present at the reading of Lewis Davidson's will in 1793. Lewis's will mentions her as Hanna McMeekin and bequeaths her one ewe and lamb.

In 1780, James McMechen and Hannah Davidson, together with other emigrants, came from Morgantown, Virginia in mountain wagons to Fort Henry, now Wheeling, West Virginia. They secured keelboats at Fort Henry to carry household goods, farming utensils, and cattle down the Ohio River to a tract of land opposite Sunfish Creek, where Washington, Ohio later stood.

The supplied Find a Grave text describes Hannah as a pioneer woman who saved her family from an Indian massacre by paddling a canoe 20 miles with three little girls while enslaved people drove cattle through the country to divert attention from the river. It also says Native attackers burned her home three times.

Hannah's last will and testament was dated July 28, 1840. The will, recorded in Vermillion County Will Book 1, page 82, names grandchildren William, Fleming, Sally, Hannah Jane, Findley, and James Davidson. Her daughter Orpah Davidson was named administrator, and the will also names a son, George Arthur McMechen, of Licking County, Ohio.

James McMechen's will, filed in Ohio County and dated July 26, 1823, named Hannah and daughters Orphy, Ruth, Sally Williamson, Polly Williamson, and Jane.